


As It Was From the Beginning...

by Tammany



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: After the War is Over., Havering with You., M/M, Moving On.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 08:55:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19460644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: Two men, demon and angel, both put their feet in in, as they will, and say things they should not, as they often do, and get past it, as they have before, and move into a new time, and a new revelation...as we hope for.Basically the first fight after the Apocalapse, and how they make it up.





	As It Was From the Beginning...

After the war was over…or more accurately, had failed to occur…

After the world was restored…

After Heaven and Hell’s trials had been derailed…

After they had returned home…

And eaten at the Ritz…

And it all seemed like it ought to go swimmingly…

It didn’t. Of course. Because that would be entirely too easy.

Instead, they had a fight. A stupid fight.

Aziraphale later admitted it was his own fault. He’d let his ideals get the better of him. It was just—six thousand years of expecting something wonderful to come of it all, and instead he’d ended up almost killing a child—a rather nice child, when you came down to it. And he’d helped ruin the Great Plan. And now who knew where it was all going? And on some level his old, angelic self thought perhaps it was now their job to go back to some sort of stable morality. Because, after all, they were the ones who’d stuck the spanner in the works of the only effable plan anyone knew about.

And so, well-fueled with bonhomie, champagne, and cream eclairs, he had suggested to Crowley that perhaps they might sit down and work out a long-term plan for the betterment of Earth. Nothing too exacting—one had to leave room for God’s Ineffable Plan, after all. But wasn’t it the least they could do to repair damages? Maybe even be forgiven for their incompetence to date?

Somewhere in there he had missed the signs of dismay. Those dratted sunglasses did hide so much…But there they were, toddling along, just short of uncomfortably full, headed for the bookshop, and suddenly there was Crowley in full-throated diva mode, swanning along the pavement in high-hyperbolic fashion, practically begging for a fainting couch.

“Improooooovement plan? For Earth? Did Hell’s fumes fuck up your wee little angelic mind? We go through eleven years— _eleven years,_ Angel—trying to spare Earth from one damn—no, no, you’re right, not damned, merely divinely written—one plan to improve on Earth, and we’ve just got rid of the script and are free to improvise and you want to come up with a new plan?”

He was such a drama queen. And those slim, long arms and legs, and flexible spine, and the Scottish accent with the vibrato going full out, and his fingers raking his fiery locks, and the accusatory glare that seemed to be implied behind the dark lenses. Aziraphale had felt defensive annoyance leap to life in response.

“Don’t be like that! It’s a chance to do good!” He scowled—or at least hoped he scowled, rather than merely pouting—and walked faster, trying to get ahead of the posturing demon, who was now walking backward down the sidewalk disrupting pedestrians without so much as a single apology. “It’s not like we’ve had the chance before. Just following orders. But we know Earth better than anyone above or below. Except maybe God herself, but one isn’t really sure about that. We could help.” He pleaded, now, beseeching. “We could do good together!”

Crowley snorted, and flounced, and spun back around, growling over his shoulder, “Bugger that. I’d been thinking we could finally be really, properly not-good together.” There was something sulky and hurt in his voice, but his words seemed flip. Cavalier. Frivolous.

They hurt Aziraphale’s feelings. The demon just would not take him seriously, would he?

“Well if you’re going to be that way about it,” he snapped, “why don’t you run along and be not-very good on your own? You’ve obviously given it a good deal of thought.”

And the demon had huffed, and dropped back to walk where he could lean in and gesture. “Come oooon. You know you don’t want to spend another six thousand years trying to please Heaven. Bugger—you know Heaven doesn’t intend to spend another six thousand years being pleased. This is our big chance. Cut the ties. Walk away. Go into business together.”

Aziraphale gesticulated himself, hands fluttering in the air ahead of him. “That’s what I’m saying. Go into business together—doing _good._ ”

Crowley gave a wild, barely restrained squawk, much like a peacock who’d been goosed in the arse. (And Aziraphale knew that sound quite precisely, because he’d been at one of Nero’s parties when Crowley had, indeed, goosed a peacock up the bum…) “Good? Good?! Are you serious, Angel?” Then, grumbling, “But of course you’re serious. You are an angel, after all.” He didn’t say it with any respect…

“Yes,” Aziraphale snapped. “I am. I am an angel. That hasn’t changed, Crowley.”

“And I’m a demon. And that hasn’t changed either. All I am is out of work, not reformed.” The way he said it, reformation was up there with dips in Holy Water on his to-do list.

“I see.” Aziraphale did, all too well. “So all you see this as is a chance to lounge around dodging responsibility and indulging your lower instincts.”

“Awwww. Well. Some of them? Maybe?” Crowley looked a bit disconcerted—thrown off balance. “You can’t say you didn’t like the champagne and cream eclairs, can you?”

Aziraphale shot him a very old-fashioned look indeed—one that could be traced all the way back to the garden and the look he once gave a strange demon who dared suggest it would be funny if they both got it wrong, and the angel did the bad thing… “That’s entirely different.”

“No it’s not!” Crowley scoffed.

“Well—what did you have in mind, then?”

And then Crowley, for no reason Aziraphale could see, lost his temper entirely, and waved his arms, and stalked circles around the angel, and announced he had no imagination, (which was really rather unfair, because who but a very imaginative angel could have put up with Crowley’s imagination, after all?) And then he said, out of the blue, “Fine. Fine. If that’s how you’re going to be, angel-nose in the air and all good-deeds and true, I’m out of here, Angel. Don’t expect me back any time soon, either. With no tasks coming from the head office, I’m not likely to have to call on the Arrangement, after all. Probably won’t see me for the next century. Or more!"

And then he was gone, just as they were about to reach the bookstore.

Aziraphale felt quite wrung out over it. Also more than a little confused. What had brought that on?

He fixed himself hot tea, and curled himself into his favorite sofa, and found a beloved old book, and worked to forget about it. He failed. He could barely keep his mind on the text, and the tea kept going cold, and the sofa seemed lumpy, and worst of all, Aziraphale for the first time felt clearly, indubitably lonely.

Six thousand years, and he’d known there was Heaven above him—granted, nibbling him to death like ducks—and Hell below—nibbling Crowley. And a world of people. And…Crowley.

There had always been all of them. Now all he had were the people, and the truth was he liked them best on the far side of the shop door with the closed sign up and the blinds drawn.

Crowley didn’t come around the next day. Or the next. Or for that matter the month after. Or the year.

Aziraphale puttered along. Time to angels and demons wasn’t what is was to humans. If, on the one hand, he could live second by second, in a way humans never could except in moments of great fear or great joy, he could also live decade by decade, or century by century. It had never been that strange to go a hundred years here, a hundred years there, not seeing Crowley. If their tasks didn’t overlap, or they weren’t both stationed in London at the time, it wasn’t that odd. But it had never felt like this.

Perhaps it was the contrast—the glorious victory, their shared defeat of Armageddon and of Heaven and Hell’s plans to destroy them. The pleasure of that one, precious afternoon at the Ritz. Then nothing.

In Aziraphale’s mind, that afternoon shone, golden, warm, perfect. Past and gone.

What had he said or done that had so upset the demon?

Of course, over time it niggled and prickled and tickled at him, a fly swallowed that left him wanting a spider, a spider swallowed to catch the fly, his innards increasingly beset with guilt and remorse. He’d gone all angel on his demon, hadn’t he? Big plans for filling in for God herself, as though God couldn’t manage it all quite ineffably on her own. Make everything good. Quite the aspiring little cherub, wasn’t he? Next thing you knew he’d have been thinking about getting some extra wings and a few decorative eyes for Sunday Morning Spirit Form Dress Up. And a halo or two—the big, flashy ones you saw on the better sort of icon. And he’d expected his demon to trot along, chipper and happy to go along with the entire silly notion.

It made Aziraphale feel quite ill.

He was reluctant to do anything about it, though. It was embarrassing. Only a very stern lecture to himself about the sin of pride and the virtue of humility managed to talk him down.

It was almost two years after their fight that Aziraphale dressed himself, taking out some of his most cherished wardrobe before going to Crowley’s building and knocking at Crowley’s door. He took out the ice-cream suit he’d worn back in 1941—the same one he’d worn when Crowley rescued him from the Nazis. He had the fedora, still, too. He’d added a particularly natty waistcoat he’d got on Carnaby Street during the late ‘60s, and a cream and pink and pale teal paisley silk cravat he’d had made from a woman’s shawl back in 1850, that he tied into a neat bow he’d learned from Wilde himself. He’d considered something plainer—more penitent—but it had never made sense to him to martyr the spirit when everyone else also had to put up with you looking all sackcloth and ashes and hair-shirt-ish.

Dressed, he called a taxi and puttered on down to Crowley’s, and soon was tapping warily at the door of Crowley’s flat.

“Crowley? Crowley, are you at home?” For some reason it had never occurred to him that he might put in all the effort to prepare for a humble and sincere apology only to find Crowley not in. “Yoo-hoo. My dear Crowley, are you there?”

A sound from the interior penetrated the door. It was not reassuring.

“Warrrrr-wha? Whassit? No s’listers. Go’way.”

“Crowley? Is that you?”

Something thrashed, and furniture noises ensued, and Crowley—it had to be Crowley—shouted, “Who’s there? Is that you, Angel?”

“Who else would it be at this time of day,” Aziraphale said, worried as the sounds coming from inside the flat got louder and more chaotic. It was like moving day at the circus in there!

“Jus’ a minute. Bit unprepared. Gimme…gimme…” The grunt of a demon becoming sober in quite a hurry echoed in the little outer vestibule. “Uh. Eyeh. Hooo.” The voice settled, and became more recognizably Crowley in his better mode—if slightly hungover still. “Blech. Angel? Look, this is…Maybe…do you want to come back later?”

“No, Crowley, I want to come in now. I won’t have the nerve, later,” Aziraphale said, querulously. Then, feeling quite foolish, he said, “I even dressed for this.”

“Oooh. Well.” The sarky amusement was—what? An odd, odd mix. Only later would Aziraphale realize it had blended fragile defensiveness and fond amusement: Crowley’s laughter at his Angel being quite reliably his Angel, combined with fear that with the Angel would come judgement. “If you dressed, then I suppose there’s no chance of a reprive.”

Aziraphale, on the other side of the door and too nervous to process, failed to catch a single nuance. Instead he said, equally defensively. “Well—‘reprive.’ I won’t exactly say ‘reprieve.’ I mean, I only came over to have a word with you.”

Which was all to avoid saying “Fling myself on my knees and beg you to stop shunning me.”

Inside the flat, someone was approaching the door, which was then flung open. “Well. A word with me. God—Satan—Hell—Pagan Pan forbid I fail to listen. What’s the word? Is it out of your crosswords? Six letters, beginning with B and ending in ‘ugger’?”

Crowley looked like the classic red-headed stepchild: uncared for, unkempt, and unhappy. His hair was cut in a singularly unappealing undercut—far, far too short on the back and sides, and far, far too spiky on the top. He looked like an over-fertilized Army recruit after a fight with an especially surly sheep shearer. He was still clearing his mouth of the residue of what appeared to have been a monumental drunk. All he was wearing was a black tank shirt and black silk boxers, along with a pair of Ray Bans that had to date from the 50s.

“Oh,” said Aziraphale, almost overwhelmed by the urge to start passing miracles right, left, and center while dragging the demon into the flat and preparing to take care of him…tea. Food. A shower. The poor thing looked positively uncool… “Crowley, is that really you?”

Yellow serpent eyes glowered at him over the top frame of the Ray Bans. The tongue that flickered and tried to escape the taste of hangover was in mid-morph, pump and human, yet forked at the tip. “Who else is it going to be? You think Beelzebub is going to come on by for a nice little social chat, and answer the door for me? Or—Gabriel. He’s got over the Apocalapse and he’s decided to hire me in your place. Of course it’s me.” He gave a heavy sigh, scrubbed his fingers through his already atrocious hair, and muttered. “Enter at your own risk, Angel. Not at my best today.”

Mincing in warily, Aziraphale came to the quick conclusion that the demon hadn’t been ‘at his best’ for some time.

The first thing was the odd scent of autumn that seemed to pervade the flat—odd until they passed through what had, apparently, once been a glorious plant room, filled with dead stalks and fallen leaves turning to mulch and humus on the marble floor. There was dust. And spiderwebs, complete with long-leggity daddy-long-legs spiders. There was laundry, undone. There were boxes of pizza and Chinese take-away. And bottles. Many, many bottles. Many were empty. The one on Crowley’s desk was somewhat full. Aziraphale suspected that it held many returns of the day’s binge drinking.

“Oh, dear.”

Crowley made a face, and snipped back a mocking, “Oh, dear.” He scowled. “Can’t you just leave well enough alone, Angel? Or at least give me time to get over it. We no sooner have a spat that you come toddling around to turn me up sweet. Some things take…” he hesitated, and looked away, face suddenly still and blank. “Time,” he concluded, in a suddenly empty voice. “Some things take time.”

“It’s been two years!”

The skinny demon shrugged. Dressed as he was, it was all bony shoulders and long arms twitching, a sad, skeletal look that hinted of concentration camps and starving hermits. He still didn’t look at the angel. “One year. Two. A decade. Give a demon a decent period of mourning, at least.”

“Mourning?” Aziraphale was shaken. His demon, Crowley, mourning. Mourning what, exactly?

“Well—I say ‘mourning,’ but—maybe more like, like, like….Let-down! Tha’s it. Let-down. The whole Baby Antichrist, and then Armageddon, and then Hellfire in Heaven, and then the fight with you. A demon needs some recovery time.” And though he’d made good effort to tumble the fight into a more imposing string of causes for dejection, Aziraphale could hear the hurt in Crowley’s voice.

It echoed in his memory, joined by other sad, defensive, frustrated lines. “Have a good doomsday.” “I won’t even think of you.” Even “I lost my best friend.”

“Oh, my dear Crowley,” he said, unthinking, stepping forward to put one hand on one skinny, bony, bare shoulder. “Oh, my poor dear boy. I didn’t mean it, you know. Thoughtless. Just thoughtless. I got so—I mean.” He took a deep breath, then, and braced himself. “This is what I came over about. I’m…sorry. My fault. I’ve grown so used to being an angel, you see. With a cause, and work to be done, and goals to aim for—or at least to approve of while actually drinking cocoa and having a bit of a read and a nap. And then it was all gone, and we’d done the impossible. And between being entirely too chuffed with the two of us, and just as entirely unsure what to do with…eternity…I got a bit ahead of myself. Above myself. Just looking for something to do, and something to do together.”

Even he heard the quiver in his voice on the last words. He gave a watery smile, and added, softly, “Can you forgive me?”

The silence was too long. Then Crowley said in a despairing, Kate Hepburn quaver of his own, “Forgive you? You’re an angel, Angel! Of course I can forgive you.” And then fell silent, and sullen, and sloped away, ducking his shoulder from beneath Aziraphale’s hand like a cat dropping its back to avoid an unwelcome caress. “Angels can always be forgiven.”

Aziraphale could actually hear the pout. “It seldom comes up, Crowley. Angels tend to…obey. And cooperate. And go along to get along. And we don’t rock the boat. Or do any of a number of things we perhaps ought, which might later lead to forgiveness. But…I am assuming that God, at least, has forgiven us. We’re still alive.”

“You do miss the point, don’t you, angel,” Crowley said, and stomped to one of the big plate-glass windows. He sighed, gustily, and crossed his arms around himself—long arms that seemed to have to embrace him to avoid sticky-out elbows. “Yes, angel. All is forgiven. Not that it was your fault. Just being an angel. According to your nature.”

The silence that fell between them then was staggering—so imposing it took Aziraphale entire minutes to try to deduce what had gone wrong.

Such a gawky demon, he thought, with a sad smile, remembering him on the parapets of Eden. His little lost demon. And, with that up-welling of love, he remembered…

“Forgiven? I won’t be forgiven. Ever. It’s part of the job description…Unforgivable. That’s what I am.”

Yet Aziraphale had forgiven him, once.

In retrospect, he thought, perhaps he’d forgiven him at a bad time. For the wrong things.

He looked at his demon…his poor demon, fallen from even his former cool. Skeleton-thin white legs, bare feet chalky on the polished marble floor, jet black boxers billowing, the cling of the tight black tank, that let him count ribs and knobs of Crowley’s spine. The horrible haircut. Hugging himself so tight his fingers were going to leave bruises…

“Oh, my dear…” He stepped close, and just barely touched the slim back, rigid with fear and pride. Risking all, he whispered, “But Crowley, my wily serpent—I forgive you, too.”

Two stories, then—the proud, sulky “Huh. That’s rich, coming from an angel!” of Crowley’s voice—and the story told by the shiver that passed down his back, vibrating against Aziraphale’s fingers. After six thousand year, though, Aziraphale knew how to read the two stories—and how to reconcile them. He laughed, softly, and stroked the demon’s back—and let his wings manifest. He wrapped them both in a bower of bone and feather.

“Shhhhh, now. It’s done.”

“I didn’t say I was sorry,” Crowley growled, still shaking inside the embrace—unable to resist leaning back into the firm, welcoming body of the angel, who had soothed him since the Garden.

“You never say you’re sorry,” Aziraphale chided him, gently. “That doesn’t mean I can’t forgive you anyway.” He rested his face against the curve of Crowley’s neck. “It’s all right, Crowley. It was just one more fight. Nothing…nothing eternal.”

His poor, broken demon, he thought. His heroic demon.

Then, taking the risk he never had before, he said, “I love you. I just—wanted something we could do. I’m sorry.”

In his arms his demon turned, and hugged him close, and rested his face against Aziraphale’s forehead, and kissed his brow, and said, voice breaking, “It’s all right. I…love you, too. And I forgive you.”

And in Heaven, God smiled, because the one true release from damnation is not to be forgiven, but to forgive. If Crowley wasn’t ready to forgive her, yet, that was all right. That’s what eternity was for. In the meantime, an angel and a demon clung together, ineffable and perfect, and forgave each other.


End file.
